I finally got published. And I'm extremely happy about it especially because it's a gift for my mom. For all the times she felt like she didn't matter. I know she liked it. She didn't have to say it. It showed in the way she smiled this morning. (: Here's the original piece:

"Half-Mommy's Girl"

I’ve always labeled myself as a daddy’s girl. The first poem of mine that ever got published in a book was about my father. I’ve realized, I write a lot about my father and not enough about my mother. And although my daddy’s birthday is a day before mothers’ day, let me take this time to shift the limelight to my mother and write about the woman who, for nine long months, carried my soul inside her.

She’s definitely one of my favorite people in the world. Most of the time, anyway. How she manages to keep this household together is still a mystery to me. She complains about how we don’t know the value of money and how we should stop asking her for things. But this is the same woman who takes her family to the mall and makes sure that everyone goes home with something. This is the same woman, who makes sure the pantry is filled with our favorite food. The same woman who used to bring us to National Bookstore after school and let us get as many books as we like.

All of my brothers and I have our own little stories about our mommy. Our mother scoffs at stage parents, when in fact she’s one herself. She’s ever the proud mother, announcing to her friends that his son has won an award. “My eldest, he’s the guitarist of the year, you know.” She always reprimands my older brother because he gets home so late from gigs. But she’s the first to say, “Oh my son’s part of a rock band. Buy their album!” She’s the hardest to please when it comes to academics. “What, a 2.5? Ok, better luck next time,” that’s what she told my younger brother who was just a freshman in UP. “Cum Laude lang?” she told me, when I told her about graduating. The next minute though, you’ll hear her tell someone about how his son passed both Ateneo and UP. “BAA is a double quota course!” Or how her daughter graduated with honors from UP. She’ll be asked by my youngest brother if she loves him and she won’t answer. In another attempt, my younger brother will text her “I love you, mom.” To which she’ll reply, “Luv u 2”

There are more of those that I’ve got locked in memory. And sometimes I worry if I’ll start forgetting them.

My relationship with my mom is far from perfect. I used to think we’d reach some sort of Rory-Lorelai Gilmore state in some point in our lives. There are a lot of things we don’t agree on. But at the end of the day, I know she’s still the one who’ll go into my room to close the lights before I go to bed. In the morning, she’ll be the one to close the aircon, prompting me to wake up. She’ll be the one experimenting in the kitchen once in a blue moon and will cook something over and over once she gets it perfect. She'll be the one with the bead jewelry empire in the near future who will make me pretty jewelry and hairbands on a whim.

She’ll always be my mother. And if there have been things I’ve done that hurt her, I’m sorry. I don't mean to. I never mean to.

I love you, mom. I can be a mommy’s girl, too.

They didn't change much. They separated it into more paragraphs and I think changed "soul" to "me". It was on the front page of that section. Wow. My mom says she's having it framed. Haha.